A functionalist approach to online trolling.

IF 2.6 3区心理学 Q2 PSYCHOLOGY, MULTIDISCIPLINARY

Frontiers in Psychology Pub Date : 2023-10-10 eCollection Date: 2023-01-01 DOI:10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1211023

Lewis Nitschinsk, Stephanie J Tobin, Eric J Vanman

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

Online trolling is often linked to sadism and psychopathy. Yet, little research has assessed why people high in these traits seek online environments to achieve their nefarious goals. We employ a functionalist approach to examine whether people high in sadism and psychopathy are motivated to seek the affordances of online environments (e.g., anonymity) to reveal their malevolent self-aspects by engaging in trolling behavior. A sample of 515 university undergraduates (M_age = 20.47) read vignettes depicting trolling incidents and rated the acceptability of the perpetrators' actions and whether they had ever written similar comments. Participants then completed measures of psychopathy, sadism, and toxic anonymous motivations. We find that toxic anonymous motivations partially mediate the relationship between psychopathy and sadism, and online trolling. Whereas trolling is often understood through its underlying personality traits, toxic motivations to seek anonymity may be a more proximal predictor of who is likely to troll online.

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一种功能主义的网络钓鱼方法。

网络钓鱼通常与虐待狂和精神变态有关。然而，很少有研究评估为什么具有这些特质的人会寻求在线环境来实现他们的邪恶目标。我们采用功能主义方法来研究虐待狂和精神病患者是否有动机寻求网络环境的启示（例如匿名），通过参与网络攻击行为来揭示他们恶毒的自我。515名大学本科生（Mage = 20.47）阅读了描述网络钓鱼事件的小插曲，并对肇事者行为的可接受性以及他们是否写过类似的评论进行了评分。然后，参与者完成了心理变态、虐待狂和有毒匿名动机的测量。我们发现，有毒的匿名动机在一定程度上介导了精神变态、虐待狂和网络钓鱼之间的关系。尽管网络钓鱼通常通过其潜在的性格特征来理解，但寻求匿名的有害动机可能是谁可能在网上钓鱼的更接近预测因素。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Frontiers in Psychology PSYCHOLOGY, MULTIDISCIPLINARY-

CiteScore

5.30

自引率

13.20%

发文量

7396

审稿时长

14 weeks

期刊介绍： Frontiers in Psychology is the largest journal in its field, publishing rigorously peer-reviewed research across the psychological sciences, from clinical research to cognitive science, from perception to consciousness, from imaging studies to human factors, and from animal cognition to social psychology. Field Chief Editor Axel Cleeremans at the Free University of Brussels is supported by an outstanding Editorial Board of international researchers. This multidisciplinary open-access journal is at the forefront of disseminating and communicating scientific knowledge and impactful discoveries to researchers, academics, clinicians and the public worldwide. The journal publishes the best research across the entire field of psychology. Today, psychological science is becoming increasingly important at all levels of society, from the treatment of clinical disorders to our basic understanding of how the mind works. It is highly interdisciplinary, borrowing questions from philosophy, methods from neuroscience and insights from clinical practice - all in the goal of furthering our grasp of human nature and society, as well as our ability to develop new intervention methods.